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While we can certainly improve on elements of their 1E presentation, the idea that the Deathlords fundamentally don't want to just plunge existence into nothingness like good little puppets of the Neverborn is definitely here to stay.

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I mean I could see an interesting angle of establishing a very high level of activity and have that be explained as just how fracked up these things are that its all the same thing as talking in their sleep to these things.* It just doesn't seem like the standpoint of 2e's canon. It also probably doesn't help that at times it felt like the Deathlords didn't have personalities so much as they were wearing hats. I mean wasn't the Bishop stated to be terrified of the Lover for reasons unstated? Was anything ever done with that?

*Silly idea

FAFL: "Oh no they're still asleep."
Abyssal: "Really? They seem insanely active for sleeping."
Princess Magnificent: "No that's asleep. Its kind of freaky yeah."
Abyssal: "Are you sure?"
Mask: "Oh yeah. At least in our time I don't think they've been awake longer than 10 minutes."
Eyes:"It was a really productive 10 minutes though."
Princess Magnificent: "Didn't you try to unmake yourself 5 minutes in?"
Eyes: "Yeah, but Wander of Desolation succeeded in unmaking himself and I hated that douche."
*Abyssal is freaked out as assembled Deathlords are visibly cheerful and nostalgic*

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While we can certainly improve on elements of their 1E presentation, the idea that the Deathlords fundamentally don't want to just plunge existence into nothingness like good little puppets of the Neverborn is definitely here to stay.

Sure, I'm not really interested in nothingness. Nothingness is pretty boring, since by definition it's something lacking in details.

What I'm concerned with is death; how these individuals that style themselves as lords of it approach it, harness it, share it, and what the ultimate consequences of that are.

I would definitely think that these things should be a bit distinct from the kinds of political and territorial aspirations of the Realm, but everybody is ghosts.

Certainly, I think the Neverborn should have little more relevance than being the places where these self proclaimed lords of death went to acquire their power (and we're maybe cursed by the experience). Like, if even First Edition went so far as to have Neverborn deliberately punishing Deathlords for transgressions, I think First Edition was putting the focus in the wrong places.

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Sure, I'm not really interested in nothingness. Nothingness is pretty boring, since by definition it's something lacking in details.

What I'm concerned with is death; how these individuals that style themselves as lords of it approach it, harness it, share it, and what the ultimate consequences of that are.

Yep. From a big-picture, bird's-eye perspective, the thing that the Deathlords are, the narrative and dramatic role they fulfill in the setting, is to personify nine-or-thirteen different aspects of Death, to be a pantheon of nine-or-thirteen Gods of Death—not gods as Creation knows them, but real-world mythology's gods, like Yama or Ereshkigal or Mictlancuhtli. That's what makes them so interesting, and such good inspiration for Abyssal Charms.

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Yep. From a big-picture, bird's-eye perspective, the thing that the Deathlords are, the narrative and dramatic role they fulfill in the setting, is to personify nine-or-thirteen different aspects of Death, to be a pantheon of nine-or-thirteen Gods of Death—not gods as Creation knows them, but real-world mythology's gods, like Yama or Ereshkigal or Mictlancuhtli. That's what makes them so interesting, and such good inspiration for Abyssal Charms.

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Yep. From a big-picture, bird's-eye perspective, the thing that the Deathlords are, the narrative and dramatic role they fulfill in the setting, is to personify nine-or-thirteen different aspects of Death, to be a pantheon of nine-or-thirteen Gods of Death—not gods as Creation knows them, but real-world mythology's gods, like Yama or Ereshkigal or Mictlancuhtli. That's what makes them so interesting, and such good inspiration for Abyssal Charms.

Hmm, at times like this, I need to remind myself that ideas that I've come up with in the interim are absolutely not definitive.

So even if I've come up with something that functions as an alternative to First and Forsaken Lion brooding in his citadel and directing spectral armies in meaningless wargames that I've become highly enamoured of, I can still get behind rolling back to that First Edition portrayal if it was tied with a metaphysical dimension to death that can guide the Abyssal Exalted.

Hell, focusing more on the existential problems of death than on being major figures of evil would even effectively resolve my personal issue with fantasy evil (grandiose, aspirational, almost romantic) being hard to take seriously in the face of so much contemporary and historical actual evil (petty, irrational, ignorant).

Comment

While we can certainly improve on elements of their 1E presentation, the idea that the Deathlords fundamentally don't want to just plunge existence into nothingness like good little puppets of the Neverborn is definitely here to stay.